1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a measuring method, an adjustment method for stage movement characteristics, an exposure method, and a device manufacturing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a device such as a semiconductor device is manufactured, multilayered circuit patterns are overlaid and transferred on a substrate. In this case, if different exposure apparatuses are used because different accuracies are required for the individual layers, overlap accuracy (matching accuracy) among the different exposure apparatuses is required.
Therefore, arrangement accuracy of a shot on the substrate when each exposure apparatus is used for the exposure is brought close to an ideal position, and hence the overlap accuracy among the different exposure apparatuses can be improved.
For this reason, a method of evaluating the arrangement accuracy of the shot is necessary. In a scanning exposure apparatus, for example, the arrangement accuracy of the shot is evaluated as described below.
As illustrated in FIG. 15, the transfer process is performed so that each of slit-like shots i is superimposed partially with other four shots j, k, l, and m.
In the superimposed region, as illustrated in FIG. 16, overlap marks 1 and 2 are formed by the shots i and j while overlap marks 3 and 4 are formed by the shots i and k.
Further, overlap marks 5 and 6 are formed by the shots i and l while overlap marks 7 and 8 are formed by the shots i and m.
Therefore, positional errors εx and εy and a rotational error εθ of each of the shots i, j, k, l, and m are calculated by using a least-square method from data obtained by measuring relative positions of the overlap marks 1 to 8 (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-064268).
However, the method described in the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-064268 requires that sizes of the shots i, j, k, l, and m should be within the size of the slit. Therefore, the number of shots arranged in parallel to a short side direction of the shots i, j, k, l, and m increases, and hence it takes long time to perform the exposure and mark measurement.